D's July Book Wrap-Up

Not that I'm a big supporter of bandwagons, but here's my I-totally-stole-this-idea-from-my-beautiful-sister-S book wrap-up.

Books Read: 8 

• The Raging Quiet --Sherryl Jordan
• You Are Not So Smart --David McRaney
• The Fault in our Stars --John Green
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close --Jonathan Safran Foer
• The Big Lie --Isabella Leitner (Okay, so this one probably shouldn't count because it's a book meant for the ages 8-10 range and I read it in 25 minutes because it's been sitting on my shelf for more than a decade and I never got around to it but I like reading about the Holocaust and this polysyndeton isn't even artful anymore. It goes, with or without my decent sentence structure.)
• Prufrock and Other Observations --T.S. Eliot (again, it probably shouldn't count, but it will today!)
• An Abundance of Katherines --John Green
• Paper Towns --John Green (catch a theme here?)

Books Abandoned: 0

Books in Progress: 1

• Night --Elie Weisel

Best Book: The Fault in our Stars--John Green

Okay, I've already gushed enough about TFioS (you can read and/or re-read my review of it here) so I will drag on about neither its astonishing figurative language nor the fact that Green struck the perfect balance between comedy and tragedy nor the importance of symbolism. I won't do it. Anymore.

I do feel like Night will be in this place next month. It was recommended to me by my best friend, and he's accurate about the legitimacy of epicness about 99.4% of the time. I already love it, and I'm only a few pages in.

Worst Book: An Abundance of Katherines--John Green

Yes, the best and worst July books are by the same author. Sue me. Seriously though, I had higher hopes for  Katherines. Why didn't I like it? Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. I just felt that Colin, the beyond-nerdy main character, was difficult to relate to even within our own similarities. Quite simply, Colin was that annoying kid from middle school who always tried to outsmart you but never had the right words to do it. Other than that, I loved the methodical structure of the book (many humorous footnotes that taught me a few words and phrases in ten languages) and the humanness found in some of the secondary characters. It really wasn't a bad book, it just couldn't stand up to its rivals this month.

I'm looking forward to Night as well as August's shared read: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. I've also got two more books on hold at the library: Looking for Alaska by (who else but) John Green and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Between marching band, which started this week, (ow, four mallet marimba hurts my hand!) and the beginning of school, I won't make any promises to read more books in August than I did in July. However, I can guarantee books of a higher caliber. As you can see, I seemed to be lacking in actual, ya know, challenge.

So long for now!

D